


Advantages, Or, How Helion Got His Reluctant Heir To Adopt The Traditional Formalwear of The Day Court

by valamerys



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Fingering, HELION'S TRYING, Oral Sex, Smut, Togas, Vaginal Sex, acowar spoilers, father-son bonding, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 06:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: In which Lucien is less than enthusiastic about wearing a toga, but that's alright, because Elain has enough enthusiasm for the both of them.





	Advantages, Or, How Helion Got His Reluctant Heir To Adopt The Traditional Formalwear of The Day Court

Lucien tugs on the skirt part again. It does nothing. The hem still sits _much_ too far above his knees for comfort; between how absurdly exposed his legs are, and the fact that above the waist there’s only a single swath of fabric going across his chest, he feels absolutely naked.

And that’s to say nothing of how _breezy_ everything under the skirt feels. The maids insisted, when he’d complained, that no, he wasn’t missing a piece of clothing, this was simply how it was worn. Mother above, a stray gust of wind and every guest at this damned party is going to see _exactly_ what their newfound prince inherited from Helion.

The High Lord in question claps a hand on Lucien’s shoulder as he comes up behind him. “Relax. You look nice.” There’s a little edge of humor to it; Lucien has made no secret of his disdain for the traditional apparel of the Day Court, and his father— it’s still enormously strange to call him that— has made no secret of his amusement at it.

“I look like I fought a bedsheet in a brothel and lost,” Lucien says darkly.

Helion laughs. “You’ll come around by the end of the evening. Trust me, once you’re used to it, you’ll never go back to those awful Spring Court clothes. Much too constricting, and lacking certain…” a little wink, “… _Advantages_ that these offer.”

Lucien makes no effort to hide his grimace. His mother couldn’t have had an affair with a High Lord who _isn’t_ shameless about having fucked half of Prythian? “I can’t say I’ll get as much out of those advantages as you do.”

A little pointed, but Helion clearly chooses to overlook that, casually fiddling with the way his cape sits on his shoulders. “Couldn’t expect you to. A mated male, and all that.” The curtain in front of them sways gently, the sounds of courtiers talking filtering through— they wait for their cue to enter the party, Lucien’s first formal event as the court’s Heir Apparent. “How’s that going, by the way?”

Lucien flushes against his will. His courtship proper with Elain is established but still somewhat tentative, at nearly a year old, and he resents his newfound parentage for nothing so much as that it’s taken him away from the Night Court. Away from her. He hasn’t seen her in almost a month, though they exchange letters near-constantly.

“It’s going well.”

Helion adjusts the fit of the gold cuffs on his wrists, and says, too casually, “That’s good. Since I invited her.”

Lucien feels his stomach bottom out. “You did _what_?”

Of course it’s right then that the trumpets sound, and Helion gives him a hideously smug grin before shoving him through the curtain, and suddenly Lucien is in this half-naked state on a raised dias in front of several hundred people.

Lucien goes prickly-hot and embarrassed all over as his father emerges alongside him, to polite cheers. Heart in his throat, he searches for one particular pair of eyes in the sea that pick him over, Helion launching into some placid speech or other.

He doesn’t have to look very hard. The bond inevitably draws him to her, and there she is, smiling sweetly, wisps of hair straying into her face, a little thrum of excitement coming across as she lowers her shields for him. She gives him a little wave, and his mouth tugs into an unwitting, embarrassed smile.

Fortunately he doesn’t have to do anything, just stand there while Helion speaks, but it’s still an effort to convince himself to remain in place and not _hide_ so that the girl he’s utterly enamored with doesn’t see him in this absurd outfit.

Finally, mercifully, Helion finishes, and applause ushers them down to mingle with the fawning court. Lucien is introduced to dozens of people whose names fall out of his head immediately, a sea of dark skin and bright smiles, everyone dressed in clean linens similar to his own. It doesn’t make him feel better.

Whether he’s dreading confronting Elain dressed like this or his excitement at seeing her again outweighs it, when a tug on the bond makes him look up, his heart falters in his chest. Elain’s timed it— he only catches a glimpse of her disappearing into the hallway. But it’s enough to make him mumble excuses to Helion and whichever Lord he’s talking to and follow her.

The hallways here are cavernously tall, lined with stately pillars and opening into frequent courtyards, sunlight, naturally, permeating all of it, the late afternoon casting huge shadows Lucien passes through. He’s just about to worry that he lost her entirely when a giggle comes from the shadow behind him. Elain’s arms go around him, pull him into it and into her, her mouth finding his.

“Hello,” he whispers into her lips, grinning between kisses, some part of him he hadn’t even realized was incomplete feeling whole as he tightens his arms around her.

She draws back breathless, eyes glowing as she takes him in. “Hello, Lucien.”

He raises a hand to pull a single stray curl from her face, tuck it behind her ear. Her scent makes him ache after so long away from it, the lilac and honey sweetness of her making him thick-headed. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” She smiles beatifically at him, but it deepens as she glances at his exposed chest between them. “You look…”

He groans theatrically, tries to hug her closer so she can’t actually see him. “I know, I know,” he presses a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s ridiculous. Don’t tell Rhys you saw me like this, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

She laughs. “I don’t think you look ridiculous at all.”

“You’re very kind, pet, but I’m wearing a dress made of napkins.”

Elain hums as she rises up on her toes to kiss him again, her hands sliding to his waist. “Well I like it.”

A satisfied little growl builds in his throat as Elain kisses him again, and again, shallow, teasing things, not the way he really wants to kiss her and she knows it.

“I like it a _lot_ ,” She whispers against his jaw, and Lucien’s fingers dig into the fabric of her dress as she presses her lips to the hollow below his ear, drags them down his neck.

“Do you?” He purrs, tipping back his head to let her explore, luxuriating in the feeling of her hot tongue on his skin. It’s a surrender of only a moment, as he wonders how best to go about devouring her, making her feel the heat of this thing she unleashes in him. “You like that I’m dressed like a whore? And here I thought you were so bashful.”

She pauses in her worship of the junction of his neck and shoulder, and Lucien doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s blushing furiously. He’s only recently discovered that he can tease her about her (seeming) innocence, and that filthy language makes her blush and squirm terribly; he’s spent the last month composing a thousand ways to do it and is eager to try out all of them.

But she looks up, and in place of the flushed neediness he was anticipating, there’s the tiniest of smiles. “I do like it.”

Deliberately, slowly, she pulls back from him, step by step, leaving him leaning half-ravaged against a pillar, waiting to see what her game is.

“I think it’s…” She wets her lips, gaze molten as she drinks him in. “ _Very_ sexy.”

Her voice is barely more than a bashful whisper— even at her boldest, her words come out soft— but it sets Lucien on fire as he realizes that this outfit does absolutely _nothing_ to keep his hardening cock from jutting out, making a veritable tent of that ridiculous skirt. The fabric’s even thin enough that the ridge of his head is noticeable underneath it.

It would be absolutely silly if he was any less aroused, if Elain wasn’t looking at him with those cavernously dark eyes like a wolf at a rabbit. Or a weakened fox, rather. The bond pulses, unsatisfied, a tense heat that coils between them.

Lucien steps toward her, slowly. His embarrassment is evaporated, replaced by want— let her see him. Let her see what she does to him.

He closes the space between them again, reaching up to cup her jaw as he draws back in; they find their way backwards until Elain is the one pressed up against a pillar, her pulse hammering under Lucien’s fingers and her body soft against his.

“I’ll have to wear it more often,” he murmurs, tipping her head up so his lips brush tantalizingly close to hers, “If you like it so much.”

Elain lets out the tiniest noise, a vaguely affirmative whimper, and Lucien kisses her. It’s the fulfilment of their earlier kisses, not sweet this time but hard and deep, Lucien licking into her mouth, biting at her lips, _seeking_ until she melts against him. Her hands find purchase in that single swath of fabric, like it’s a handle to hold him to her with. Lucien wants to laugh, but it’s hard to mock this outfit when it’s allowing him to press against her so effectively, providing so little barrier between them. Elain is wearing something similar; the traditional Day Court attire for women is longer, more layered, but her dress is still looser and less restrictive than the laced-up things he’s familiar with on her, and he can feel the press of her breasts through it.

He slides a hand up her side, gropes at them, running a thumb over where her nipple peaks through the fabric. He isn’t inclined to be gentle, but if the noise that comes from her throat is any indication, she doesn’t want him to be.

He tears his lips from hers with a growl. “Turn around.”

She blinks at him, eyes glazed with lust, lips swollen, so Lucien takes her arm and all but throws her against the pillar. He grabs her hands and has her brace herself against it, Elain letting out the little mewl she always does when he treats her like this. Cauldron, he missed her.

“Don’t move,” he murmurs, hands gone to explore the perfect arch she’s fallen into for him, up her thighs, her ribcage, back to her breasts. His erection throbs at the feeling of her, and he pushes his hips into her ass, grinds against her obscenely.

He hadn’t meant for their reunion to go like this. He’d meant to be sweet to her, to make love to her gently in his new stupidly large bed, but— his surprise at her being here _now_ , her forwardness, his frustration, this stupid, slutty outfit— the depravity they’ve learned they share begs to be indulged.

They have eternity. He can be kind to her later.

“Lucien,” Elain breathes, tipping her head back. “Luc—”

“I know, dove,” he shushes her gently, hand travelling up her back. “I know. You want me to do _this_.” He gathers a fistful of hair and pulls it in a single savage move, her body tensing up at the pain as her mouth falls open in a cry.

“Were you a good girl for me while I was gone?” he croons, mouth at her ear as he holds her there. Elain tries and fails to form words; it sets his blood on fire, makes him seriously consider just rucking up her skirt and finishing it now, just like this.

But he hasn’t seen her in a month, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t taste her first.

“Yes,” Elain gasps, as he releases her hair in favor of pulling up her skirt. “Yes, I was, I promise.”

“And did you think about me when you touched yourself, just like I told you?”

Elain makes a noise like she might cry, but is obedient, stays still with her hands flat on the marble. “Yes.”

He pushes her skirt over her hips, realizes with a flood of heat that she isn’t wearing anything under her linens either as the scent of her arousal hits him like a physical blow, makes everything in him sharpen and blur into a creature that exists solely to fuck Elain.

“Tell me,” he demands, low and gravelly. He trails a finger through her pussy lips and hisses at the almost dripping slickness there. “Tell me what you thought about.”

Mother, she’s so ready, it would be so easy to shove his own stupid skirt out of the way and take her now—

Her voice shakes as he rubs that finger through her wetness, teasing around her clit. “I… I thought about you fucking me.”

He kneads the perfect, pale swell of her asscheek with his free hand. Fuck, he wants to spank her, watch his handprint bloom red there, but this isn’t the place. “How,” he prompts quietly.

“From behind, like this, just like this, please, Lucien, fuck me.”

He can’t help but laugh into her shoulder, and if it sounds cruel, he’s not opposed to that. “Elain, pet, did you really think that would work? Did you think you’d get me to give you what you want so easily?”

She whimpers pathetically. He hasn’t really got time to tease her but fuck if he doesn’t want to, if he doesn’t want to draw an entire month’s worth of begging from her before he gives in.

“You want me to fuck you?” he asks harshly as he touches her, harder, faster, feeling her legs tremble as she presses down onto his fingers, into the feel of his cock behind her.

She swallows a whine. “Yes, please, please, Lucien.”

“I’m not convinced,” he hums callously, getting on his knees behind her.

“Please, Lucien, please I need you inside m— ah!” She jolts in surprise as his fingers are replaced with his tongue, his hands going to grip her, hold her to his face. “ _Fuck_ — ”

“Keep talking,” he growls, biting at her thigh. “If you want my cock, keep talking.”

She makes a strangled noise as his mouth goes straight back to her sweet, hot cunt, (fuck, Lucien missed how she tastes,) as he pulls her hips back into a better angle to get at every sensitive part of her.

“I… I did think about you. Every day,” she murmurs. He licks inside of her, works her relentlessly, trying to see if he can ruin her too thoroughly to obey his command. “And I— _mm_ —  I’d touch myself, thinking about your hard cock inside me, your hands on me,” her voice is pitched too high, her words slurred, but it’s still too coherent for Lucien’s liking, and he brings a hand back up to rub at her clit.

She cries out, but struggles through it, even as her hips push against him, ask for more, harder, faster. “I thought about the things you do to me. The spanking and the choking and… pulling my hair,” Lucien growls into her, making sure she can feel the vibrations, his satisfaction at that. “I like it when you hurt me,” she chokes, breathless. “I like it when you— _oh_ …”

He’s slid a finger inside her, pumps it slowly through her slick heat. She clenches around it and he can’t help but think of what it feels like when she does that around his cock instead, as his tongue trails up, up the cleft between her cheeks to tease at the puckered entrance there.

Her hands clench against the wall as she keens, soft and sweet. She’s always so sweet when he plays with her ass, squirms so prettily for him, and she’s always charmingly embarrassed afterwards when he makes her come that way. Right now she pants, whimpering, as he runs his tongue in little circles, adds a second finger inside her. But she seems to have forgotten her task, and since his mouth is occupied, he gives a sharp tug on the bond.

“ _Ah_ — I— Lucien, please—”

He only increases the pace of his fingers, the pressure of his tongue; a cruelty, knowing it still won’t be enough to satisfy her.

“Fuck, Lucien, I want you so badly,” she chokes, and Lucien can sense her grasping desperately for words, barely able to string them together. “Just— feeling you through the bond when I got here I wanted you, I wanted you to do this to me. And then you came out wearing that _thing_ and I couldn’t even hear the speech, I was just thinking about how I wanted to take it off you with my teeth, how I wanted to touch you—”

Lucien snarls, and he’s back on his feet in an instant, fingers slipping out of her, throwing her back around to face him. He’s not about to wait any longer, not with that confession like lightning in his blood and Elain’s pathetic cry at the loss of his touch urging him on; he pushes her dress up again, hands shaking, grips her legs to hoist around his waist—

From down the hall, voices, and the very air around them seems to freeze.

They hold perfectly still.

Another voice, indistinct but louder. Lucien’s frustration tears from his throat in a curse, Elain’s fingers digging into his arm. So close, they’re so close he can feel the heat of her center on his cock; she’s flushed and disheveled and he wants her so badly it hurts.

They look at each other, breathless. Elain is glassy-eyed but her expression breaks into a hysterical smile, and she giggles.

He entertains the thought of just turning whoever it is into a pile of ash but forces himself to put Elain down, instead, pull her towards the closest door. She stumbles after him biting her lip, and he prays this won’t lead them into a throng of people—

The room is small, and empty, a sitting room of some kind. He barely has time to notice that the one window is mercifully curtained before Elain is on him, shoving the fabric from his shoulder to give her unfettered access to his abdomen.

She kisses his chest, his neck, her hand slipping _so easily_ under his skirt to palm at him. Lucien shudders as he steers them ungracefully towards the largest piece of furniture in the room, some kind of hideous, low settee. He grips the back of her head, kissing her sloppily, and they tumble onto it, teeth clacking.

They don’t quite fit on the damn thing and it’s a struggle, shoving clothes aside, limbs knocking together. “Fuck me,” she begs, tearing at the place her dress is held together with trembling hands.

“I’m trying, pet, believe me.”

She wiggles out of the fabric, wrapping a hand around Lucien’s cock as he tries to position himself. But the seat is so shallow there’s no room for her leg around him, and the armrest under his feet is making it hard to get low enough, much less get his balance. They wobble, threatening to fall off the damn thing as they kiss, as Lucien tries futilely to architect this.

Below them is a plush, ornately patterned rug, and it gives Lucien a dumb idea.

He wraps an arm around her, and pulls them both down; Elain yelps in surprise as she topples onto him. The heat between them is too urgent to stop and laugh at it, Lucien’s desperation turning ragged, and he flips her beneath him before they can even right themselves, the carpet soft beneath his knees as he aligns himself at her entrance. The outfit that might theoretically be blamed for all of this is is still on him, pushed every which way until it’s just a bit of fabric wound around his waist.

“I missed you,” he breathes, kissing her once more.

“I missed you t—” her words turn into a curling gasp as he pushes into her, pulls their hips flush.

The bond roars in satisfaction, or maybe he does, he’s not really sure, he just knows she feels _perfect_. “Good girl,” he says thickly, as a bright red blush spreads from her neck to her sweat-slicked, heaving breasts, and he pulls back out, keeping low over her, their chests almost touching. He’s done teasing, and commanding, he just wants to be close to her, wants to feel her breath on his cheeks as he fucks her.

Elain makes a beautiful noise as he sheathes himself again, head tipping back. He catches her gaze and holds it, her lips parted as he sets a pace, demanding, fast, but not harsh, not right now. She’s hot and tight and all-encompassing, meeting his thrusts with the gentle roll of her hips and nothing has ever, ever felt this good.

She lets out a little cry of pleasure when his angle changes just slightly, and Lucien’s fingers dig into her thigh as he does it again, drives deeper, harder, watching her face raptly.

“That feel good?” He asks her, almost unintelligible for lust and breathlessness, but she nods frantically, mouth wobbling like she might cry.

“There. _There. Lucien_.”

It makes his whole body ache and burn, fever-like, the way she says his name, the way her legs shake as she takes him. She’s gripping his arms, but one hand slides down to his, braced on the rug. He yields to her unspoken request and laces their fingers together.

“I thought about you too,” he growls; his thrusts getting more erratic, chest constricting like there’s a weight on it. “I thought about doing this to you so many times, dove—” He can’t even finish the thought, voice breaking on her nickname.

Elain is close, trembling beneath him, noises starting to give way to the erratic, shallow breaths he has memorized, and she slides a helpless hand between them, to her clit.

“Good girl,” he says again, voice guttural. “Come for me, Elain.”

He can feel her rubbing herself wantonly, how it only takes a moment to push her over the edge; she seizes up, goes almost deadly silent as she sucks in a shallow lungful of air—

“That’s it, pet.”

She breaks, writhing, hips bucking against him, her quiet shattering into a chorus of moans and babbling pleas. She grips his hand hard enough to hurt but he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t feel anything but the waves of her pleasure, through the bond, around him, within him—

A final ragged couple of thrusts and he comes too, an incoherent stream of curses pouring from his mouth as he fills her. Elain mewls at the feeling, twitching sensitively in the aftermath of her orgasm.

He lets out a long groan as he sags, tries not to let his weight crush her. They lie still for a moment, Elain’s arms going around him tenderly as they both try to catch their breath, damp skin sticking together. He ducks his head to hers, rests their foreheads together.

He’s overwhelmed, for the umpteenth time but no less strongly for it, by how lucky he is. That the cauldron pointed him towards this endlessly kind, gentle woman, that she has agreed to explore that bond with him, that the forces that govern the universe were right, in some fashion, that they match each other in an intangible but endlessly _right_ way.

“I love you,” he says, as soon as he half-recovers the ability to speak.

Elain gives the tiniest giggle, and it makes his heart swell. “I love you too.” A few beats of silence. Then— “And I really do like your Day Court outfit.”

Lucien laughs, wraps his arms around her.

 

* * *

 

All told, he is gone from the party for an unforgivably long time. When he finally, quietly reappears at Helion’s side, the High Lord raises his eyebrows but continues socializing aimlessly.

“How’s Elain?” He asks innocently, when the latest chattering courtier finally floats away.

Lucien can feel himself blushing and hates it. There’s no proof he was even with Elain; he took a quick, haphazard bath to rid himself of the obvious scent of her (and sex) and even switched into a clean, identical dress robe. Helion is, as ever, presumptive, and frustratingly correct in it.

“Elain is well,” he says stiffly. (Elain is better than well. She declined to come back to the party in favor of going to take a luxurious bath. In _his_ quarters. Lucien is a touch ansty for the party to end.)

Helion’s smirk deepens. Lucien realizes with no small amount of annoyance it looks an awful lot like his own. “How fortunate. And does she like your formalwear any better than you do?”

The bastard _knows_. Cauldron, he probably planned it, knew exactly what would happen. Beron might have been literally evil but at least he wasn’t this infuriating.

“It’s possible,” Lucien grates out, and Helion laughs.

He mercifully does not press the matter, but when Lucien is wearing Day Court wear at breakfast the next day without a word of complaint, Elain at his side, Helion’s smugness is tangible.

(When Lucien is not looking, Helion and Elain share a conspiratorial grin.)

 

 

This fic is also on [tumblr](https://valamerys.tumblr.com/post/160508234095/toga-sex-elucien-smut-fic) !


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